Walt Whitman (1887) by George C. Cox
We here at Brooklyn Public Library are excited for the opportunity to celebrate Walt Whitman on the occasion of his 200th birthday! Whitman lived and worked for part of his life in Brooklyn and penned “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” so, as you can imagine, Brooklynites are eager to claim him as OUR poet (although, Camden, NJ, you can have some too--there’s enough to go around).
Yet today Whitman is celebrated not only for his voice or his association with Brooklyn, he is also embraced as an iconic, queer poet—his…